


Momento Reddam

by Fairfaxleasee



Series: Fenris/Cassia [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autism Spectrum, Dissociation, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29688741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairfaxleasee/pseuds/Fairfaxleasee
Summary: With Fenris gone on a mercenary contract, Cassia Hawke searches for something that will remind her of him.Set in Act III after doing Fenris' personal questline
Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke
Series: Fenris/Cassia [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141970
Kudos: 6





	Momento Reddam

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @blondetexan and @xqueen0fhellx for betaing

_ Where is it? _

Cassia Hawke dug furiously through the pile of clothes on the floor of her bedroom. Although ‘pile’ may be a charitable description - there was one area where the clothes were stacked a bit higher, but Cass had long since buried the entire floor under one garment or another.

She dropped what she was holding and attacked a different part of the mess hoping to spot the telltale shade.

“Mistress, if you just tell me what you’re looking for, I can help you find it.” Orana couldn’t seem to decide whether she was more worried about the state of Cass’ room or the state of Cass.

“The red shirt. I’m looking for the red shirt.” Cass kept tossing anything she picked up that wasn’t what she was looking for aside.

_ Wait, was that the sweater Fenris was looking for?  _

Cass looked behind her in the direction she thought she might have thrown the thing. If it had been Fenris’ sweater she couldn’t see it any more. Most of her wardrobe favored the same dark neutrals as most of his, even if he preferred more achromatic shades.

_ Whatever; I’ll look for that after I find the shirt. Why can’t I  _ see  _ the stupid red shirt! _

“But Mistress Hawke, you don’t  _ have _ any red shirts!”

“It was in the closet.”

Cass stalked over to the open closet to check that there wasn’t anything in there she hadn’t thrown into the had-at-some-point-been a pile that was currently all over the floor. The shirt had spent three years banished to the closet when it hurt to look at it but she couldn’t bring herself to throw it away.

“What does it look like, Mistress?”

_ It was a burgundy tunic but now it’s more of a rose with bell sleeves, a low square neckline that ties, and some darting and black embroidery under the bust. _

While that was what she was looking for the only way she could describe it aloud was, “It’s the red shirt. I want the red shirt.” Cass spotted the dresser. She had shoveled armfuls of clothes out of it early on in her search, she thought she’d gotten them all but maybe if she removed the drawers and shook them a bit something would fall out. Or maybe it got shoved behind one and fell when she pulled them out and was currently on the floor under the dresser. She started walking towards it.

Orana called from outside the room, “Mistress, could it be in this closet?”

Something about that sounded off to Cass, but she didn’t care; she wanted her shirt. She rushed from the room into the hallway. She spun her head looking for whatever closet Orana had been talking about when she heard the door slam behind her and the lock click.

She tried the knob anyway. When it didn’t work she started pounding on the door, “Orana, let me in. I need the red shirt!”

“I-I’m sorry, Mistress; I can’t let you in right now. I’m going to clean up in here but I promise that if I find any red shirts, I’ll show them to you and you can tell me if they’re what you’re looking for.”

“But I  _ need it _ , Orana!”

“I know Mistress, and I’m very sorry you can’t find it. If I see anything like what you’re talking about, I’ll let you know right away.”

Cass ran her hand down the door in defeat and slumped down on the stairs with her elbows on her knees and her face buried in her hands.

_ If it’s not in there then I lost it and I CAN’T have lost it! I NEED it! _

The shirt wasn’t really the crux of the need. It was just a tangible reminder she had of what she really needed: Fenris. And even if the sweater had been his, it wasn't right because she didn't remember it; she remembered the shirt and she wanted the shirt! 

He’d just come back and for the first time in  _ three fucking years _ it didn’t hurt every second just existing and now he was  _ gone again and she needed that shirt _ .

At least this time his leaving had been her idea.

“Fenris, you took the contract; you have to go.” She may have been slightly more persuasive if she hadn’t been worrying the elbow of his shirt between her fingers as she said it.

He coaxed a strand of her wavy auburn hair away from the rest and twisted it around his fingers, “That was before.”

She shook her head, “You said you’d do it.”

“Cass, it doesn’t matter; they can find another mercenary.”

_ You doing what you say you will matters to me. _

Unfortunately, that had been yet another time where Cass’ brain just couldn’t seem to get her mouth to say the words she wanted it to so all she could do was press part of her lower lip between her teeth and tug at his elbow.

“Cass, I don’t - please help me understand.”

But she was stuck inside her own head again, with nothing but the monsters that dogged her incessantly there and screamed she had it coming for not being able to find a way out no matter how many times the same thing happened.

The next thing she remembered was sitting on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, Fenris holding her tight. 

Her breathing must have changed or something because Fenris whispered, “Are you back, Cass?”

“Mm.” She wanted to have nodded but had no idea whether she came at all close.

“Do you want me to let go?”

She didn’t, but her words still weren’t back, and trying to force them to come would only make things worse. Instead she leaned into him and rubbed her head on his chest.

“Alright. Let me know if you change your mind.”

She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but at least feeling Fenris encasing her was enough to keep her from completely slipping away again.

Eventually she was able to whisper, “...have to go.”

“I  _ don’t _ Cass.”

“...said you would.”

“That doesn’t - you’re more important.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a muted wail, “ _ Promised _ .”

“Cass, I-” he held her tighter, “ _ Are you sure you’ll be alright _ ?”

She wasn’t. If she’d been able to think she’d have thought it unlikely. But it didn’t matter because he’d promised. Besides, it was going to be two days, it was stupid enough that he even had to be  _ worried _ she wouldn’t be alright for two days, the fact that she so obviously wasn’t going to be was utterly unforgivable.

And the realization of the sin had chased her words away again. Her throat was too tight again; her  _ skin _ was too tight again - she needed to get out of it, if she could just start bleeding it would ease the pressure and she’d be able to talk again. She started struggling in his arms. He let her go immediately. As soon as her arms were free, she clawed the fingers on her left hand and reached it across her chest aimed for the skin over her collarbone. But something stopped it before it reached its target. She tried to move her right but something was pinning that in place too.

“Cass,  _ stop _ . I can’t let you hurt yourself anymore. I can wait until you’re ready to tell me.”

She turned away from his reassurance; there were things in it that she’d been wanting, needing all her life, even if she didn’t deserve them, shouldn’t expect them. The fact that she needed the reassurance at all was proof of that.

“ _ Please _ , Cassia. I love you.”

She felt him press his cheek to the back of her head. She didn’t understand the last thing he’d said. She’d heard the words before, of course, her mother and sister wouldn’t shut up with them, and her father had said them sometimes too, but there had always been something sinister about them. A reminder that she was shackled to her family and would never be able to go far enough away to escape - a way to collar her and drag her down. But that wasn’t what Fenris was saying; but if that wasn’t what he was saying why was he using those words?

She felt the tears start to flow - they were always the first sign that she was too exhausted to keep fighting. She went limp in his arms and he laid her down on the bed. She felt him lay down behind her. He reached an arm across her body and she snatched it out of the air so she could pull at the elbows of the shirt he was wearing. She thought she might have felt him stroking her hair with his other hand.

She waited until she was positive her words were back before she tried speaking again. “Fenris,  _ please go _ . I can’t  _ keep _ you here; I can’t  _ make _ you stay.”

“You’re not…” She felt him take a breath, “Cass, I  _ want _ to stay with you.”

She kept hold of his elbow with one hand and turned over in the bed to face him, even if she couldn’t look at his face. “Fenris, you can’t give up everything for me.”

“You are everything for me, Cassia.”

“But you told them you’d go.”

“It doesn’t matter. I want to stay here, with you. I don’t want to go anymore.”

“But that’s why you have to. You can’t stay with me if you already promised you’d be with somebody else.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to lie to me!” She was starting to come apart again - the logical connections were slipping away, pieces were falling out of place, and something dark that lurked in the avoided recesses of her mind was trying to crush her from the inside,  _ again _ .

She heard Fenris sigh then felt his fingers in her hair as he gently stroked it, “I’ll wake you up before I leave. But all you have to do is say the word and I’ll stay.”

She was too tired to actually respond to that, her episodes always took a lot out of her, and this had been a bad one, or bad ones; it was hard to tell sometimes. Instead she let go of his elbow and pinched the fabric over his chest to draw it slightly towards her.

He pushed her head down so her forehead rested just below the collar of his shirt. She closed her eyes and heard him whisper, “I’m sorry, Cass. I’ll figure you out, I promise.”

She tried to apologize, “I’m sorry I’m so hard to understand,” but she must not have managed anything close to it.

She felt him laugh even if she couldn’t hear it, but she did hear him say, “I’m afraid I can’t promise to figure that out, Cass; but if you remember what it was when you wake up, I’ll listen.”

She hadn’t remembered when he woke her up to tell her he was leaving that morning, she was still too tired. She had at least managed not to actually grab his elbows, even if she had reached for them. He’d smiled down at her and said, “I’ll be back in two days. I’ll come straight here; I promise.” She remembered nodding and going back to sleep; he’d had to leave at one of those times she was still convinced wasn’t actually a time, just some lie morning people made up. 

Sebastian and Aveline had dragged her out of the estate later in the morning once it was late enough that she stopped stabbing anything that got too close to her on principle and had drunk her coffee. They’d said some Chantry sister had lost some relic in Hightown, or possibly Lowtown, or the docks, but maybe the Gallows, and as Cass had a knack for tracking down every lost object in the entire city of Kirkwall and surrounding areas, they decided that’s what she needed to do that day (when the thing turned up in Darktown after Sebastian  _ insisted _ she look in all the places he’d mentioned first, she was even more positive than she’d been at the outset of the errand that it was just a way to keep her distracted and under supervision for the day). She’d been perfectly fine until after dinner, when she decided she wanted her shirt and couldn’t find it.

And it was obvious it wasn’t in her estate by this point. It would take Orana at least an hour to sort through the disaster she’d made of her room, but she knew she hadn’t seen anything close to the color of the shirt she needed, that she just couldn’t handle the idea of losing.

_ I didn’t lose it, I CAN’T have lost it - where could it BE? _

If she could just think of this like a puzzle she might be able to hold it together. It was a shirt; if she wasn’t wearing it (and she couldn’t be wearing it because Orana would have told her she was hours ago), she must have taken it off. But she didn’t  _ TAKE _ her clothes off anywhere except her room or… Fenris’ mansion. She couldn’t decide whether it was more unlikely that she had forgotten to put her shirt on and walked back to her estate without it or that she had NOT forgotten to do that at some point given her penchant for forgetting to pick things up once she put them down (maybe that was why she was good a finding every single other thing anyone had ever put down and forgotten).

She didn’t really like the idea of going over to Fenris’ when he wasn’t going to be there, but he’d said she was welcome there any time she wanted. She was fairly certain that the implication of the statement was that he should  _ be _ there when she went over, but it wasn’t like she could ask him right now and she needed to find that shirt.

He liked it too.

Fenris’ room looked a lot like what Cass imagined hers would look like after a few weeks without Orana around to impose order. She couldn’t light too many candles as the mansion was supposed to be deserted (although when Fenris got back she needed to remember to talk to him about how it would be much more convenient, not to mention fun, if the mansion were  _ haunted _ rather than  _ deserted _ ) but anything with color should be easy to spot in the piles of grey and dun.

She was much more careful keeping things in piles here than in her room, these were Fenris’ clothes and Fenris’ piles, she probably shouldn’t be touching them at all, but she needed to see what might be buried inside them.

There was no red anywhere. She sat on the floor slumped over herself with her chin on her knees.

_ Why isn’t it here? _

She was starting to cry when a color caught her eye. It wasn’t red, wasn’t the one she was after, but it was a color. And it was a color that didn’t make any sense, Fenris didn’t have anything green. She grabbed the spurious garment and pulled it out of the pile it was under.

_ Gingerbread men? _

It was the Satinalia sweater from the year Aveline had made her and Fenris go to the party. Aveline still had one every year, but her and Fenris being there once had been such a disaster they’d been excused from ever having to go again.

She didn’t want to think about the party, but  _ after _ the party they’d come back here. She’d bought some marshmallows on the way because she thought it would be fun to roast them. It hadn’t been the greatest plan to use some of the more substantial splinters from a chair leg Fenris had broken to roast them, but they  _ did _ have fun. It wasn’t her shirt, but it was a memory - and one she hadn’t thought about in ages; she’d been given a stupid sweater too, but she’d had to burn it - it ended up with blood all over the end of one of the sleeves. She wasn’t sure why, but she brought it to her face and inhaled  _ and it smelled like him _ . The next thing she knew she was shoving it over her head and pulling her arms through the sleeves. Then she lay down on the floor. She was so tired, she’d spent hours looking for… something. It had been important. Maybe she’d just close her eyes for a few minutes and she’d remember.

“...Cass?”

Someone was shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw Fenris looking down at her. “Fenris! I - I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have fallen asleep, I shouldn’t even have come over when you weren’t here-”

“It’s alright, Cass. I said you could come any time, and I meant it. Are you up to going back to the estate? Orana’s in a panic, I’m a bit worried she may have already gone to get Aveline to find you.”

“I - why?”

“She said you were looking for something and upset you couldn’t find it. I admit, I probably would have gone to get Aveline myself if I hadn’t found you here.” He reached out his hand for her.

She took it and stood, then shook her head to try and clear out the fog of sleep. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t make everybody worry about me all the time.”

He reached out to hug her but stopped himself. She leaned towards him and he smiled before he wrapped his arms around her. “Cass, we worry because we care.”

“You shouldn’t… it’s… I’m too much work.”

“You are  _ not _ . You could never be.”

She ran a finger along his chestplate and whispered her confession, “I made you come back early.”

He chuckled next to her ear, “My  _ esteemed _ employers decided to try and change the contract. Wanted me to work three days, not two. I told them I had an engagement I couldn’t miss in two days so they weren’t getting me for three. We decided I’d escort them there and they could hire a different mercenary. Of course they only paid me a quarter of what they were supposed to, but fortunately I know someone who’s good at getting money out of people who think they can re-negotiate a contract as they go along.”

“They’ll wish they’d taken their chances with the highwaymen by the time I’m through with them.”

“I’m sure they will.” She was starting to shake so Fenris let her go. “We can stay here if you want, but I should at least tell Orana I found you; otherwise we’re all going to have to answer to Aveline in the morning.”

Cass shook her head, “No, I should go back too. She already had to clean up the gigantic mess I made, I shouldn’t make her worry all night too.” Fenris inclined his head to the door and reached out his hand. Cass let the arm of the sweater fall over her hand and began to reach back when she stopped as she realized what she was still wearing. “Oh, sorry; I’ll take it off.” She reached for the hem of the sweater.

Fenris blushed a bit and rubbed a finger along his jaw, “You don’t  _ have _ to take it off if you don’t want to, it looks better on you than it did on me. Although,” his finger stopped on his chin and he turned to grin at her, “if you want to start wearing my clothes, I think we should find something you can wear out more often without other people knowing.”

“I… um… oh… yeah. I guess we could maybe do that.” She looked away, “Especially since I lost the shirt you really like.”

He cocked his head at her, “The shirt I really like?”

“The red one. I was trying to find it and I couldn’t. And it’s not at the estate and it’s not here so I must have lost it somewhere.” She could feel tears in her eyes again.

“...the tunic that was in your closet?”

“I… yeah, but how’d you know it was in the closet?”

Fenris’ mouth shifted into an expression Cass couldn’t place and he walked back to where he had found her. He began to dig through a pack she didn’t think had been there when she’d fallen asleep. He was pulling out something red, “I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t think you’d miss it.” He walked back and held out the shirt to her, “It reminded me of you and I decided to bring it with me. I didn’t think not having it would upset you like it did. I wouldn’t have-”

She reached out and grabbed his chestplate with one hand and pull him towards her so she could run a finger along his ear, “You found it!”

“I’m… not sure I would put it like that. I won’t take it again.”

She stopped running her finger on his ear and lowered her hand, “Do you not like it anymore?”

He took her hand and brought it back to his ear as he smiled at her, “I like it much better when I get to look at you wearing it than when it’s sitting in my pack.”

She closed her hand over his ear and rubbed it with her thumb, “Me too.”


End file.
